Just a reminder from the WSJ: ObamaCare will make premiums skyrocket

posted at 3:21 pm on July 1, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

For a relative few, the upcoming ObamaCare mandates will provide some relief from the high cost of covering pre-existing conditions. For most of the people in the individual-plan market, though, costs will skyrocket, the Wall Street Journal reports today. Rates could rise by double or even triple what healthy middle-age consumers now pay in the non-employer market, and that may mean a disincentive that will put even more stress on risk pools:

Healthy consumers could see insurance rates double or even triple when they look for individual coverage under the federal health law later this year, while the premiums paid by sicker people are set to become more affordable, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of coverage to be sold on the law’s new exchanges.

The exchanges, the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s health-care law, look likely to offer few if any of the cut-rate policies that healthy people can now buy, according to the Journal’s analysis. At the same time, the top prices look to be within reach for many people who previously faced sky-high premiums because of chronic illnesses or who couldn’t buy insurance at all. …

Virginia is one of the eight states examined by the Journal and offers a fairly typical picture.

In Richmond, a 40-year-old male nonsmoker logging on to the eHealthInsurance comparison-shopping website today would see a plan that costs $63 a month from Anthem, a unit of WellPoint Inc. That plan has a $5,000 deductible and covers half of medical costs.

By comparison, the least-expensive plan on the exchange for a 40-year-old nonsmoker in Richmond, also from Anthem, will likely cost $193 a month, according to filings submitted by carriers.

This concern was first raised about the impact of ObamaCare on California, but it looks like a nationwide phenomenon. Supporters of the law point out that the exchanges also make some consumers eligible for subsidies — although subsidies are hardly free; they’re simply a way of passing excessive cost onto all other taxpayers, along with the increase of costs in their own premiums. The WSJ also notes that eligibility for subsidies is limited, and the benefits thin anyway:

A 40-year-old with income near the poverty level—currently $11,490 a year for a single person—would likely qualify for a subsidy of as much as $234 a month toward the cost of premiums in Virginia, potentially covering the entire cost of a bronze plan.

Any subsidy in Virginia would vanish once an individual reached annual income of about $33,150.

Forbes’ Avik Roy, who first analyzed the impact on California, follows up on today’s WSJ report:

Obamacare Bronze plans aren’t that different from what you can buy today on the individual market in terms of co-pays, deductibles, and actuarial value. Richardson found two nearly-identical plans sponsored by Kaiser in Sacramento, with identical networks of hospitals and doctors.

As Richardson’s table to the right illustrates, the Obamacare plan had a higher out-of-pocket maximum and the same actuarial value as the 2013 Kaiser plan. Today’s plan costs $100 a month; the Obamacare version costs $205.

Radnofsky notes that the success of Obamacare’s exchanges hinges on persuading, if not forcing, healthier people to enroll, even though they will pay far more for insurance than they will consume in health care. “Supporters of the law say tighter regulation on insurance practices gives consumers more protection and is worth the extra cost, but they have to persuade people who don’t have an immediate need for health care of that,” she observes. “If only sick people buy into the new insurance pools, prices could shoot up.”

Obamacare’s advocates argue that it’s acceptable for healthy people to pay double or triple for individually-purchased health insurance, because the sick will benefit, and because the poor will be protected from the hikes (due to the subsidies). That seems optimistic to me—but we’ll find out soon enough.

In other words, this is just another mechanism for the redistribution of wealth — from the healthy to the sick. However, in practice it’s actually redistributing wealth from the younger and less wealthy (on average) to the older and more wealthy. Forcing healthy people who don’t need comprehensive health insurance into risk pools supporting older and needier consumers is really just a reverse subsidy, one that benefits a key voting constituency — older non-Medicare voters. Funny how that works out.

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Obamacare is working as planned, then. Premiums are necessarily going to rise so to be unaffordable for most people who will then insist on “affordable” coverage through government single payer health care paid for by all means of higher and more taxation.

In that photo, it appears the male physician next to Obama is sporting a ponytail. I have been employed at a hospital for 35 years. I have yet to observe a physician sporting a ponytail.

I don’t think any real doctors were present there. I believe that was just a photo op in which people in attendance were given lab coats to wear as props to emphasis Barry’s message, although some there may have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express the night before. :)

Will the two policies noted in Virginia ($63 vs. $193) still have a $5K deductible? I bet not. So the policy holder paying $193 will pay $1,560 a year towards a deductible that may never be needed. Great plan./

It’s worth repeating, 25 states have now approved Christian health care sharing ministries which are decisively less expensive…money pooled by members go to the sick/injured directly without the burdensome of an insurance company intervening…my company (Samaritan) has doubled enrollees in 18 mos. due to O’careless…

Obamacare’s advocates argue that it’s acceptable for healthy people to pay double or triple for individually-purchased health insurance, because the sick will benefit, and because the poor will be protected from the hikes (due to the subsidies).

That is almost the exact opposite of what the O-care advocates promised and represented when they passed this monstrosity. We were promised that healthcare reform was to bring down premiums for everyone and make insurance available to everyone. Now we know that the number of uninsured won’t decrease much at all and for the vast majority of the productive people in the economy premiums will skyrocket. More lies and deception from the Obama crowd.

For a relative few, the upcoming ObamaCare mandates will provide some relief from the high cost of covering pre-existing conditions.

Hold on there a minute Ed. I am one of those uninsurable people with pre existing conditions. For years I paid for all of my medical costs out of pocket, including insulin and supplies, and several maintenance medications, and doctor visits four times a year. This continued until about two years ago when I was able to get insurance through my new employer.

Not really to my astonishment the costs of my medications is now actually higher with insurance than it was a couple years ago without insurance. I’ve only been able to see my doctor twice in the last year due to availability.

So, how is ObamaCare providing me with any relief from the high cost of covering pre existing conditions? If anything, ObamaCare has made my cost of covering my pre existing conditions significantly higher.

I think you might be a racist for implying that 0bama lied (& spoke stupidity) when he lied to us.

I’m also sensing that my employer is not going to be saving a lot of money and passing that on to me in terms of greater salary. Also sensing that I just may not get to keep the plan or doctor that I liked.

All of this for 30 million people that didn’t have insurance? BUT WAIT, there are still going to be 30 million without insurance? YEAH.

Well, either they lied about Obamacare…and we all know they would never do that, right?

Or, that new 30 million will be those new illegals streaming across the border or “coming out of the shadows” to get far better medical (for free) here than they can get back home paying through the nose for it.

Which raises another question, weren’t we told that there were just 10 million illegals hiding in the shadows or something?

A miscount?

Or, shows how “fertile” they are all of a sudden?

I pray that soon, with a new Congress, and after that a new American President, we can dismantle Obamacare and try to actually identify and fix the real problems with medical and health insurance…don’t need much improvement in health care…seems to be pretty top-notch already. Lots of non-Americans come here (legally, with proper visas and such, to obtain medical care on a timely basis which they cannto get at home.

Which raises yet another question…why have we let the Left, the Progressives, steer the conversation about health care when Obamacare has little to do with that, but everything to do with reaching into our pockets to pay for somebody else’s health insurance costs?

Goebbels, or was it Stalin, was right when they said tell a lie often enough and it becomes accepted truth.

Hey, Obama is our savior. He wouldn’t do that do us. He’s been elected twice now with a mandate to make our lives healthier, cheaper and cleaner and make the oceans cease to rise and the earth begin to heal.

Apparently the U.S. has too many people too dumb to be allowed to vote. By the time they figure out that this guy is a bigger con man than Bernie Madoff, he’ll be out of office and we’ll be holding the bag and his supporters will still be blaming it on the GOP.